They had requested admittance to his presence for the purpose of tendering their counsel in this emergency.

The Primate was spokesman.

He respectfully asked that the administration might be put into the hands of persons duly qualified, that all acts done under pretence of the dispensing power might be revoked, that the Ecclesiastical Commission might be annulled, that the wrongs of Magdalene College might be redressed, and that the old franchises of the municipal corporations might be restored.

He hinted very intelligibly that there was one most desirable event which would completely secure the throne and quiet the distracted realm.

If His Majesty would reconsider the points in dispute between the Churches of Rome and England, perhaps, by the divine blessing on the arguments which the Bishops wished to lay before him, he might be convinced that it was his duty to return to the religion of his father and of his grandfather.
Thus far, Sancroft said, he had spoken the sense of his brethren.